In ancient times Emperor
Diocletian built
his palace a few minutes walk from Marjan. This opulent palace-city was actually inhabited by up to 8,000 to 10,000 people, who required parks and recreation space, Diocletian therefore organized some areas of Marjan nearer to the palace as a park. There is also a small rustic early 13th century
AD church situated on Marjan Hill. The church is dedicated to
Saint Nicholas (Sv. Nikole) a favourite saint of
fishermen, of which there are many in
Split. Two and a half kilometres further along the path that runs along the south rim of Marjan is the fifteenth century church of
St. Jerome (Sv. Jeronima). The church has an altar carved by
Andrija Aleši. Built into clefts in the cliffs directly above and behind St. Jerome are a group of
Renaissance hermitage caves, first used in the 15th century. On the eastern slopes of the Marjan, just above the city, is Split's
Old Jewish Cemetery. First established in 1573, the cemetery has over 700 graves, with readable tombstones from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, the last burial taking place in 1945 when it was closed and protected as a monument. Marjan has become a symbol of Split in the last century and a half, before that it was considered an ordinary part of the landscape. As the city grew, however, it was left out because of its rocky and difficult terrain, and became, in effect, a part of the wilderness next to the very center of the city. Soon the citizens started to frequent it as a
picnic spot and a romantic retreat, its many beaches adding to its popularity as well. During the
Second World War, Marjan was the subject of a popular
Partisan song "
Marjane, Marjane", sung by the Split (and Dalmatian) members of that
anti-fascist movement and was reportedly a favorite song of resistance leader and future president of the new
SFR Yugoslavia,
Josip Broz Tito. Indeed, the flamboyant Partisan leader was so fond of the hill itself, he chose it as the site for the summer residence of the Yugoslav president, the
Vila Dalmacija. In the 1950s, during the period of the second Yugoslavia, the Federal Government, in conjunction with local Split authorities, undertook a massive project for the transformation of the entire wild hill into a forest park. The hill was intensively forested (large parts of it were barren until then), many recreational facilities were built, including jogging tracks, a road system encircling the peninsula, a maritime research institute, the Split City
Zoo (now fallen into disrepair),
botanical garden (recently abandoned) and a water pipeline reaching all the way to the top of the hill. The authorities also constructed the city
weather station and two
"vidilice", or "look-out points", as resting places connected with a long stairway all the way to the
Diocletian's Palace, the "Riva"
promenade and the rest of the city center. On the south side of the Marjan is the
Meštrović Gallery housed in the former villa of
Ivan Meštrović, thought by many to be one of the greatest sculptors of religious subjects since the Renaissance. ==Climate==